A common theme that developers often face is deciding which platform they should make their apps available on next. Are the users on this platform engaged enough? Will I be able to make money on this platform? These are only some of the questions that developers face, before investing their time on transferring their apps. For Playtika, a company which builds highly immersive social games, expanding their apps onto as many platforms as possible has become a core strategy.

Playtika’s app Slotomania currently holds the #8 spot worldwide for highest grossed mobile app on iOS and Android. In addition to iOS and Android, Playtika has also launched on the Amazon Appstore, which has proved to be a big success. According to Playtika, the Amazon Appstore provided the team with the highest ARPU (average revenue per user) compared to other platforms and also contained the highest retention rate amongst its competitors. Recently I had the chance to sit down with Elad Kushnir, VP of Business Development, to discuss how their apps were doing in the Amazon Appstore and their experience working with Amazon.

“The Amazon Appstore does not only make the migration easy from an existing Google Play app, but it also has outperforming KPI’s as well.” says Elad. The team has seen some impressive results since their app has gone live in the store and have done fairly well for themselves in terms of revenue. “When we compared our 2014 data, we noticed that ARPU on Amazon was 70% higher than on Android and 15% higher than on iOS”- Elad Kushnir

The team credits the unique audience that Amazon brings in and how engaged they are. “When we looked at retention rates for 2nd day and 7th day metrics, the retention was relatively the same across all platforms. However on the 30th day, retention on Amazon Appstore was 10%-20% higher than on iOS and Google Play.” Says Elad.

Playtika Sees 150% Higher Conversion Rates from Players to Payers on the Amazon Appstore Compared to iOS and 170% compared to Google Play

Getting users engaged is only half the battle. With a free app like Slotomania, conversion rates (paying users/ DAU) is crucial in terms of making revenue which is why Playtika is using Amazon’s In-App Purchasing API. So how many of these users are actually purchasing within the game? From Playtika’s data in 2014, they determined that the average user on the Amazon Appstore is 150% more likely to become a paid user than on iOS and 170% more likely than Google Play.

Figure 1In-App Purchasing

From Google Play to Amazon Appstore with Little to No Work

When the team came together to decide on their next platform, they chose the Amazon Appstore immediately. So why did the team decide that Amazon Appstore was the right choice?

“When we were deciding on our next platform, we already had our app on Google Play. We realized that moving our app from Google Play to the Amazon Appstore would be pretty easy since Fire OS is built on Android. Once we started, we got our apps up and running in a couple days and the process itself was seamless. The best part was that it had relatively low development costs.” – Elad Kushnir

From previous tests, we actually found out that more than 75% of the Android apps we tested just work on Kindle Fire with no additional development required. The team has now launched several of their games on the Amazon Appstore and are working on the getting the remaining ones up and running within the next year.

Moving into Fire Phone and Amazon Fire TV

Moving forward Playtika plans to take their apps to the next level by getting them onto Amazon’s newest devices. Their current focus is to get their app on Fire, in which their team is already planning on integrating Fire’s exclusive feature, Dynamic Perspective. In 2015 Playtika is planning to also have their apps on Amazon Fire TV. For now, the Playtika team tells us that they are very happy with how things are going and plan to release even more apps on the Amazon Appstore in the near future.

We recently had the chance to talk to developers from across Europe and the United States about their experience with Amazon. They shared their insights on monetization, customer acquisition, ease of submission, and the marketing of their apps.

You can also check out some of the highlights from the video below:

Developers like Pixowl are Seeing Higher ARPU than on Other Platforms

According to an IDC survey of 360 developers sponsored by Amazon, 74% of the surveyed developers said that Average Revenue per App/User is the same or better (38%) than other platforms. Sebastien Borget, CEO and Co-founder at Pixowl, and Stephan Berendsen, Founder and President at BBG Entertainment, were excited to see their apps monetize better on a per-user basis than on competing platforms.

‘Revenues Per User on Kindle are for us up to 4x times higher than on Google Play’ Sebastien Borget, CEO and Co-founder, Pixowl

Stephan points out that Amazon customers are used to paying for content and that the standard Amazon one-click payment method makes purchasing apps even easier for customers.

Reach More Customers with Amazon Marketing Tools

To tap into this customer pool and leverage the monetization potential, Ben Howard from Viewranger actively uses the Amazon Appstore capabilities available and has added the Amazon Appstore badge to their website to leverage the Amazon brand with its customer base.

“It’s a very unique device and comes with a lot of brand recognition. We get to use the Kindle Fire logo, we get to say that the app is available on their platform, which just means that more and more people are going to use our app.” Ben Howard, App Marketing and Sales Executive, Viewranger

Submit your App Today

The IDC survey also noted that 65% of surveyed developers are experiencing total revenue on the Kindle Fire on par or better than other platforms. And since most Android apps just work on Amazon Appstore without any additional development, it’s a great time to get started. Sign up for a free developer account here.

In the realm of classic puzzle games for mobile apps, Bitmango is no newcomer to this genre. The South Korean company launched in 2011 and has a focus on casual mobile games that challenge the way people think. Games such as Draw Line Classic and Draw Line Bridge, (downloadable here) are available on the Amazon Appstore.

We recently chatted with Yewoon Seo who is the publishing team lead for Bitmango. Yewoon took us in depth on how Bitmango is performing on the Amazon Appstore, the team’s experience on getting their app onto the platform, and some things that surprised their team about our services.

“The decision to get our app onto Amazon was obvious”- Yewoon Seo

Expanding and reaching more customers has always been one of Bitmango’s priorities, which is why Bitmango decided to look into the Amazon Appstore. “I noticed that the Amazon Appstore platform was similar to Android so I immediately knew there was a huge potential here,” says Yewoon. The team initially built their apps on Google Play, so the team worked on moving their apps over onto Amazon Appstore. So how hard was it to transition their game over? The team was pretty surprised at the little amount of work needed to complete the task.

“There’s not much effort at all to port our app from Google Play to the Amazon Appstore. It took us approximately one to two hours per app, by just tweaking the API. For our app the certification process was only a day, which was something we have never seen before in any other store. ”- Yewoon Seo

The team has already received tens of thousands of downloads, which has given them the kind of expansion they were looking for.

ARPU that was worth the investment

“Results were great,” according to Yewoon. Their main app “Draw the Line: Classic” has performed really well in the Amazon Appstore in the US in terms of average revenue per user (ARPU).

But their app success didn’t stop there. When “Draw the Line: Classic” was compared to other app stores in terms of all the countries where the game was available, the app consistently outperformed others in terms of average revenue per user.

“Since the platforms between Google and Amazon are so similar there was not much effort needed to move our app over,” says Yewoon. In terms of effort needed to achieve these results, the team was very satisfied with the results.

From customer centric to developer centric

“The amount of detailed feedback that the Amazon reviewers provided during the submission process was a huge surprise to us and something we’ve never seen before. These are things that really saved us time and something we really appreciated,” says Yewoon. Yewoon mentions that they appreciated that the Amazon team provides help for their developers in a variety of ways to answers their questions. “Sites such as the Amazon Apps and Services Developer Portal really helped us when we needed help on specific topics or issues,” says Yewoon. The Amazon Apps and Services Blog is always updated with the latest announcements, updates, and also provides detailed tutorials.

“Popular Kindle Fire apps are generating 59 cents of revenue for every dollar earned by top apps in the Google Play store, according to a Distimo study. Download volumes are about half those on Google Play for top app titles — impressive considering how many more Android devices are in circulation.”

Launched in 2012, publisher DJiT describes edjing as the first and only multiplatform track-mixing application on the market. With edjing, customers have been given the opportunity to mix like a professional DJ, record their tracks, and numerous effects and then share them out with friends. Available on the Amazon Appstore here and other platforms, edjing has already registered more than 15 million downloads and is available in more than 170 countries across iOS, Android, Windows and Amazon.

I had a chance to sit down with Jean-Baptiste Hironde, CEO of DJiT, to discuss their experience bringing edjing into the Amazon Appstore ecosystem, what they’ve found Amazon customers like about their app, and what type of success they’ve seen.

Porting to Amazon with a single developer

The process of updating the existing Android version of edjing for the Amazon Appstore was a simplified one and done by a single developer on the team. “We have been very pleasantly surprised on how easy it was to port the app over to Amazon. We only had few modifications to do in order to adapt to the Amazon environment, especially concerning the In-App Purchases. We just simply had to match our existing In-App Store SKUs with Amazon’s.” recalls Jean-Baptiste.

DJit Experiences Higher ARPD and ARPU in the Amazon Appstore

Edjing chose to have a Freemium business model for the initial release. The app was downloadable for free but customers could buy additional features as in app purchases via the edjing in-app store. Currently this includes selling additional sound effects as well as customizable turntable backgrounds. The Freemium version also implemented an offer wall within the app, to help offer purchasing options to customers who had not bought anything yet.

“The Average Revenue Per Download (ARPD) on Amazon is actually higher than on Android.” – Jean-Baptiste, CEO

Figure 2- Buying a new Skin via Amazon's In-App Purchasing API

Based on the success with the Freemium model a Premium version of edjing was released. “Amazon monetizes very well, therefore we’re currently offering a Premium version. We actually noticed that though the volume of downloads might be lower than on other platforms, the Average Revenue Per Download (ARPD) is actually much higher than on Android." says Jean-Baptiste.

Soon after being launched edjing was also featured in the Amazon Appstore. According to Jean-Baptiste after being featured, the average daily downloads on the Amazon Appstore for edjing increased by 400% during that time.

“Amazon users spend more time in edjing than any other platform. Close to 25% of edjing for Amazon sessions exceed 30 minutes!” – Jean-Baptiste, CEO

Edjing has also seen a stronger engagement than on competitive platforms. “Amazon users are very qualitative users. User engagement with edjing on Amazon is higher than on any other platform. In proportion, Amazon users spend more time in edjing than any other platform. Close to 25% of edjing for Amazon sessions exceeds 30 minutes! “In summary, it is so easy to port the app on Amazon that there’s no reason you shouldn’t!” concludes Jean-Baptiste.

You can check out edjing today in the Amazon Appstore including both free and premium versions. You can find out more about the Amazon In-App Purchasing API here.

In a previous case study, you heard about the tactics that Big Blue Bubble uses to monetize their free to play (F2P) games. In this study, we’d like to share how June Software increased their app exposure by going from an iOS-only producer to an iOS and Android platform producer, and how their presence in the Amazon Appstore has racked up higher Average Revenue per User (ARPU) than any other app store.

June Software is a small San Francisco based software company founded in 2008. They build casual, arcade games and e-learning games for children. Initially June Software only built games for iOS where they have titles such as Math vs. Zombies and Guess the Movie, which is ranked #3 worldwide and is #1 in Australia.

June + Unity + Amazon Appstore = Less Friction, More Revenue

To grow their customer base, June Software decided to address the Android marketplace. June chose to port their iOS games to Android using Unity. Unity allows them to build their app once and deploy it to multiple app stores, including the Amazon Appstore.

When we asked about their experience on Amazon apps store, June Software Director Products Saurabh Jain said: “On Amazon, we have seen 2x times the ARPU [we see] from Google Play, and 1.2x [more than] than Apple AppStore. The overall downloads aren’t there yet, but the revenue makes it a very good market for us.”

Increasing Time in Games Increases Potential Income

One effective strategy that Saurabh implemented is that they have integrated Amazon IAP and GameCircle features in their games, which increased potential revenue and player engagement. GameCircle includes features such as leaderboards and achievements that keep players engaged and can increase user session time and session frequency, giving uses more opportunities to make IAP purchases. And it works on Android and iOS. This is exactly what June Software needs for their games available for both platforms.

What can you do?

To learn more about using Amazon GameCircle in your Unity apps, read this blog post and refer to this documentation.